Last edited by Runer112 on 21 Feb 2013 01:36:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

christop, I think you may be confusing an OS file with a ROM file. The OS file is freely available and, when sent to a calculator, allows you to actually use the calculator. A ROM file contains more than just the OS though. It is an entire dump of the flash memory of a calculator, which includes the boot code and your calculator's unique certificate. Nowhere online does TI provide a download for the boot code, and certainly they don't provide any certificates.

Basically the OS file you can freely download from TI's website is a piece of software, and the certificates contained in the ROMs of purchased calculators are licenses to run that software. Sharing a ROM would be sharing the individual license contained in it.

EDIT: This might be entirely unrelated to what you're trying to assert, which isn't quite clear to me. If it is unrelated, ignore me.

christop, I think you may be confusing an OS file with a ROM file. The OS file is freely available and, when sent to a calculator, allows you to actually use the calculator. A ROM file contains more than just the OS though. It is an entire dump of the flash memory of a calculator, which includes the boot code and your calculator's unique certificate. Nowhere online does TI provide a download for the boot code, and certainly they don't provide any certificates.

Basically the OS file you can freely download from TI's website is a piece of software, and the certificates contained in the ROMs of purchased calculators are licenses to run that software. Sharing a ROM would be sharing the individual license contained in it.

I do understand the technical differences. I didn't differentiate the two because it is irrelevant with respect to redistributing or downloading the files. Neither the OS files from the TI site, nor a ROM dump file from a calculator, can legally be redistributed.

The certificates on a calculator/ROM file are "licenses" only in a technical sense, not in a legal sense.

Like I said, all copyright cases so far have revolved around distributing files without license to do so;

Wrong. But even if it wasn't, laws-that-have-used-so-far and law-on-the-books are two separate things.

Name just one case. And nowhere does US copyright law (the "law-on-the-books") restrict the receipt of a copyrighted work.

elfprince13 wrote:

If you know they're sharing an illegal copy of a work, than you're engaging in conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.

So you may be liable for conspiracy rather than for copyright infringement. But a conspiracy "is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future". That requires far more action on the part of the downloader than simply being aware that the uploader is (or might be) infringing.

(Sorry for the double-post. This one is a reply to a new post that came in while I was writing my previous post.)

That's not a ROM. That's just an OS, which is completely redistributable. A full-blown calculator ROM consists of two parts: a public OS, and a private boot page. The boot page and any file that contains it (including a complete ROM used to run any emulator) cannot be distributed, but an OS can.

I do understand the technical differences. I didn't differentiate the two because it is irrelevant with respect to redistributing or downloading the files.

For the TI-89 this is fine, but the z80 calcs there is also the issue of the bootcode. Which cannot be downloaded freely nor gotten without owning the calculator and thus purchasing one "license" for its use. Since you cannot receive this bootcode without purchasing it from TI downloading a full rom that includes it is willingly assisting in the distributors copywrite infringement.

That's not a ROM. That's just an OS, which is completely redistributable. A full-blown calculator ROM consists of two parts: a public OS, and a private boot page. The boot page and any file that contains it (including a complete ROM used to run any emulator) cannot be distributed, but an OS can.

For the m68k calcs there is basically no Boot Code to speak of besides some recovery stuff that is not required to use the calculator thus it is essentially a rom.

That said even the m68k OS it is not freely distributable, the only distribution you are allowed is for the use of upgrading others calculators. As in to other people with a calculator on which to up it.

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Last edited by christop on 21 Feb 2013 02:37:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

Compynerd255 wrote:

That's not a ROM. That's just an OS, which is completely redistributable. A full-blown calculator ROM consists of two parts: a public OS, and a private boot page. The boot page and any file that contains it (including a complete ROM used to run any emulator) cannot be distributed, but an OS can.

Alright, so I called it the wrong thing. It's not a "ROM" but only a subset of a "ROM", colloquially referred to as an "OS" around these parts.

But even the "OS" that TI distributes is not redistributable without an explicit license. The "License" on the TI-OS download page has one vague statement in provision 4:

Quote:

4. Copyright: The Licensed Materials and any accompanying documentation are copyrighted. If you make copies, do not delete the copyright notice, trademark, or protective notices from the copies.

which, on the face of it, appears that TI is granting permission to redistribute, but they do not actually explicitly grant that permission. Without a license (no, a certificate on a physical calculator is not a license) that explicitly grants the permission, no one has permission to redistribute the file, even to transfer it to another calculator. The TI documentation very well may grant this permission, but I haven't read that documentation in a long time. I would check it before attempting to even so much as transfer an "OS" to another calculator (despite the very low probability that TI would sue anyone for doing so).

Edit: on second thought, an "OS" can still be called a "ROM"; it's just an incomplete one. None of the discussion of ROM vs OS is relevant to redistributing the file, though. A certificate is not a license, nor is owning a physical calculator. You don't need a license to use the software.

christop: Let's rephrase this discussion slightly. Regardless of what you think is legal, the staff here at Cemetech have to make our best judgement in accordance with our TOS, so in this case your opinion is irrelevant. If in our best judgement, you are telling people to willfully violate intellectual property law (regardless of whether or not you think you're doing that), we will tell you not to do so, and if you continue doing so after being warned we will delete the posts and consider further repercussions.

A theoretical discussion of ethics of intellectual property law as it currently exists is fine, but this is not the thread for it.

If in our best judgement, you are telling people to willfully violate intellectual property law (regardless of whether or not you think you're doing that), we will tell you not to do so, and if you continue doing so after being warned we will delete the posts and consider further repercussions.

That is fair enough. I just want to be clear that I am not advocating copyright infringement. I'm not even advocating that people download ROM (or other) files that might be distributed without permission from the copyright owner. If people want to do that, that's their business. (Personally, I can't recall ever downloading a TI calculator ROM or "OS" file from anywhere except TI's site, except for "OS" files for my own TI operating system, but of course I own the copyright to that.)

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